Domestic Violence Survivors and the Intermediate Appellate Courts

Background and Purpose: The “legalization” of preventing domestic violence, beginning in the 1970s, sought to increase the availability and severity of legal responses afforded to battered women (Zorza, 1992). To examine how these reforms developed, and their effectiveness, I examine cases dealing with domestic violence at the intermediate appellate courts. I chose to focus on the intermediate appellate courts because domestic relations law is almost exclusively a state function. Using these intermediate appellate court data, I examine the impact of shifting American mainstream legal thought on domestic violence, case and litigant characteristics, and policy era variables on the success of female survivors of domestic violence.

Methods: This is an exploratory study that uses a quantitative methodology (logit model). To identify cases where an intermediate appellate court dealt with domestic violence policy, I used WESTLAWNEXT in each of the fifty states from 1965 to 2015 based on two searches. The first search included the following terms: marriage, divorce, wife, girlfriend, cohabitation, mistress, ex-girlfriend, "unmarried person", "physical cruelty", fighting, "bodily injury", "physical pain", "personal violence", "physical violence", fear, "danger to health", violence, "threatening conduct", "cruelty and ill treatment", "barbarous treatment", cruelty, "harsh or humiliating language or demeanor" "cruel and inhuman treatment", "physical abuse", "elements of cruelty", "inability to live together", and "mental cruelty."

My second search includes the following terms from 1965 to 2015: "domestic violence", "domestic abuse and violence", threat, "domestic assault", "deadly weapon", violence, "emotional abuse", homicide, murder, "battered woman", harassment, "domestic disturbances", "child custody", protection order", "protection of endangered persons", "security or order for peace or protection", stalking, "abuse prevention order", "domestic violence petition", "emergency protection order", "domestic violence order", "ex-parte protection order", "restraining order", "preliminary ex parte and emergency relief", "exclusion and stay away order", and "no contact orders."

Results: The results shows that a female domestic violence litigant has a higher probability of success before the intermediate appellate court when: her life is threatened, a protection order is involved, she is the appellee in the case, and the state intervenes on her behalf.

Conclusion and Implications: This study highlights that judges are not acting like traditional politicians when deciding cases regarding domestic violence but are responding as concerned humans to human stimuli. These results seem to indicate that when it comes to domestic violence against women, the intermediate appellate court justices are primarily concerned with making certain that the law protects litigants who are facing demonstrable physical threats.